In just one week, the number of facebook users who have joined the campaign to persuade Resorts World Sands (RWS) to abandon its intention to display 28 dolphins caught from the wild has ballooned to over 7,000.
On 27 May 2011, ACRES launched this unique awareness campaign to encourage all animal lovers to create videos or take photos that portray the message to stop dolphin captivity and petition against the decision by RWS to bring in these dolphins for entertainment. In addition, it is hoped that the popular support against using dolphins for entertainment and as profit-generating commodities will convince the government to step in and put a stop to RWS’ intention to bring in these dolphins altogether.
In fact, the man whose company sold RWS the wild-caught dolphins, Chris Porter, has since ceased this business. Although he was considered the world’s biggest dolphin broker, he is now questioning the value of using such animals for entertainment purposes and keeping them in artificial environments that are a far cry from their native habitat. In a similar positive move, United Parcel Service (UPS), which shipped the seven dolphins from the Solomon Islands to the Philippines in 2008, said it would stop moving this kind of cargo as the practice violated its environmental principles.
In addition to these directly-affected parties involved in this particular case, a similar attempt by Mexico in 2003 to bring in 28 wild-caught dolphins for one of its attractions has resulted in almost half of them dying within a 5-year period. This unpleasant experience led the Mexican government to impose an outright ban on the importation and exportation of live cetaceans for entertainment purposes in February 2006.